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Shura Announces New Album, Shares Video for New Song “religion (u can lay your hands on me)”

forevher Due Out August 16 via Secretly Canadian

Jun 13, 2019By Christopher Roberts

Shura (aka Alexandra Lilah Denton) has announced a new album, forevher, and shared a video for its new single, "religion (u can lay your hands on me)." Forevher is due out August 16 via Secretly Canadian. Watch the video for "religion (u can lay your hands on me)" below, followed by the album's tracklist and cover art, as well as her upcoming tour dates.

The album is the follow-up to her 2016 debut, Nothing's Real. Denton is British, but is based in New York. Denton co-produced the album with Joel Pott. It features Jona Ma (from Jagwar Ma), Will Miller (Whitney), and T-E-E-D, with additional vocals from Rosie Lowe, Kerry Leatham, and Reva from Nimmo. The album includes "BKLYNLDN," a single shared back in March via a NSFW video (it's also below).

In a press release Denton describes the album as "a soul record, sung by someone who doesn't have a traditional soul voice. And I quite enjoy the antagonism of that."

Thematically, the album is about Denton's long-distance relationship with her girlfriend, or as a press release puts it: "It's a classic NYC-to-London love-story, but one told through the totally modern filter of dating apps, unanswered texts, and Skype chats."

Chloe Wallace directed the "religion (u can lay your hands on me)" video. The press release says the song is "a mediation on queer desire that explores the concept of sex being like a religion. The song was inspired by the burgeoning love affair, a time of constant texts and phone calls on different continents, where the phrase 'you can lay your hands on me' takes on a playful meaning."

The album cover is inspired by Rodin's sculpture The Kiss, but instead features two women. Denton had this to say about it in the press release: "I wanted to create something that people could look at, in the way that you look at The Kiss, and think: I recognize that. Or I want that, or I crave that, or I miss that. I wanted to make something that was specific to my experience of being a queer woman that anyone of any gender or sexuality could look at and think 'yeah, I understand' or 'that's beautiful.' Because that's all love is."